Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!bloom-beacon!oberon!pollux.usc.edu!papa
From: papa@pollux.usc.edu (Marco Papa)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.tech
Subject: Re: ST-251 in a PAL Jr.
Keywords: disk,odd behavior
Message-ID: <9990@oberon.USC.EDU>
Date: 20 Jun 88 22:59:54 GMT
References: <476@amanpt1.zone1.com>
Sender: news@oberon.USC.EDU
Reply-To: papa@pollux.usc.edu (Marco Papa)
Organization: Felsina Software, Los Angeles, CA
Lines: 23

In article <476@amanpt1.zone1.com| mrr@amanpt1.zone1.com (Mark Rinfret) writes:
|I just installed a Seagate ST-251 (40 MB) drive in my PAL Jr. expansion box
|(Remember it?  I bought it just before Byte-by-Byte stopped making them, also
|I did the low-level format, specifying 820 cylinders, 6 surfaces, 1:1
|interleave and head parking zone at cylinder 821.  Nothing unusual occurred
                ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
|during the (very long) formatting process.  This was done with a program
|supplied by Byte-by-Byte, named "hdtest".  Indeed, the blocks described as
|bad showed up as bad during the formatting and test run.  Oh yeah - I did
|map out the bad blocks.

The Seagate ST-251 AUTOMATICALLY parks the heads at power down.  If one uses
the "prep" program that comes with the CBM A2090 HD controller and selects
the "programmed" parking after inactivity, one gets "unuasual seek activity"
plus random lock ups.  I don't know what the program supplied by Byte-by-Byte
does, but it probably performs similarly.  Try to select a "NO HEAD PARK"
option if available and reformat.

-- Marco Papa 'Doc'
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